spontaneous encounters

my feet ached this morning

after walking miles home from globalquerque music fest
all my rides having left without me

after running into my favorite dance partner
and banging around for hours through the evening

after a miles-long nob hill walk to the coop
down lovely silver avenue

and hanging out there a while
with a heroin addict

-----

that's part of one day back in NM
for a visit

not sure how to weigh the amazing connections
and surprising disconnections

all piling up together
with barely a tune played

seems to me the angst level is higher here
than when i left

could just be a busy week for folks
but hell: no equinox party

and with a full moon to boot?

-----

a voice says: c'mon new mexico
you're better than this

but deeper down i am guessing
people are scrambling

with no time to waste anymore
on music gatherings and pagan celebrations

those of us living near the edge
are starting to get the hang of swimming

in this new post-capital economy

but for my liberal middle-class friends
there is but trepidation

as they approach the vortex
we already have learned to welcome

new paradigm or bust

-----

today it looks like
i will miss another ride connection

and so borrow a bike
to travel long into the south valley

fiddle strapped to my back
for a friend's family-birthday gathering

and then over to globalquerque
night two

where at least i will have
a bike to get home with

-----

the best part
is the upside-down meaning to everything

buying a smoothie for a smackheaded brother
provides the best conversation of the day

you should see how much people give
when you say: spare change for some dope?
$25 in half an hour--usually that'd take all day
maybe they thought you meant pot--could be
or maybe they just enjoyed the joyful directness
of your clear request

i wanna quit for my daughter
y'know about suboxone?
yeah that worked for me once
but then i came back to abq
miles had to lock himself away for a week
no kidding

anything to eat today
priorities first--it's for maintenance y'know
can i buy you a juice?

-----

likewise

unexpectedly walking miles home at midnight
provides the grist for today's best insight:

i play a rather random character
in the lives of my friends and acquaintances

continually jumping out of boxes
the not-quite artist

sometimes borderline homeless
empathic fuck-up

i annoy people with my dependency
and independence both

-----

yet like so many anarchists i know
what i am doing

is offering people a wake-up
inviting them

into a world of symbiosis

into the actuality of our collective human condition
the poverty of apparent wealth

its meaninglessness and fear
isolation and stress

and the truer wealth of magic
within the interdependence of apparent poverty

wherein however awkwardly
some of us have chosen the path of nonviolence

including a steady movement
beyond enslaving monetary structures

into attendance to basic needs
food bonding chi safety meaning

perhaps particularly out-of-doors

into the beauty and abundance
the reminders of gratitude inherent in such

spontaneous encounters